Cultural Bias in Psychological Theory

2 types of cultures:Cultural Bias...is when assumptions are made about one culture based on thenorms of another culture.This tends to be a problem in psychological theory because researchers inpsychology are predominantly American; with Rosenzweig (1992)estimating that 64% of the worlds 56,000 psychological researchers areAmerican, who often state that their theories are representative of universalbehaviour- when actually the theories may not be generalisable to othercultures.The two main types of cultural bias are Ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism. ETHNOCENTRISM refers to the use of our own ethnic/cultural group as a basis for judgements about other groups. The opposite of ethnocentrism is Cultural Relativism... This is the idea that all cultures are worthy of equal respect, and that in studying another culture we must try and understand how that culture sees the world.Eurocentrism is a particular form of ethnocentrism, whereby psychologistsplace an emphasis on European (or Western) theories and ideas at the expense of othercultures. Implicit here is the assumption that Western concepts are fundamentally differentfrom those of other cultures. Western research is then applied to other cultures to create auniversal view of human behaviour.

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Psychology' has traditionally meant Western Psychology, with the assumption thatpsychological knowledge can be applied to the whole of humankind.But psychology practiced in other parts of the world has created the need for an alternativeview of human behaviour based on indigenous cultures. Most of this research comes from Asia, where there are more psychologists than in Europe (Yamagashi 2002).…read more

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The Social Exchange Theory states that we try to maximise `rewards'(affection, sex) and minimise `costs' in a relationship. This theory assumes that for arelationship to work a person must feel the rewards outweigh the costs.The Equity Theory expands on this, stating that people expect to receive rewardsfrom a relationship that are proportional to the rewards they provide for the other person.Such theories reflect Individualistic societies, in which group members are mostlyconcerned with their own success.…read more